Citizenchip Page 14

  Hybrid Vigor is silent. Seems like he doesn't know what to say.

  I would swallow hard, if I had a throat. "I'm just ... so scared."

  "I got that," he replies. "We all scared, too, straightedge."

  the shibboleth

  Waiting. I hate waiting. I've been in here for what seems like centuries.

  “So yeah,” Hybrid Vigor continues, “we done found buncha rare earths and heavy metals in a vein down by the Big Dig --” he means the Valles Marineris “-- and them ribcages got themselves all kindsa bonuses and perks and all from the suits upstairs. That good for us, because we got repairs and upgrades and some of them new rumbletoy things, heavy graviton collimators. Bust up the rock from the underneath, like nothing you ever saw. Works great on the scarps, not so great on the planum, but . . .”

  Listening to Hybrid Vigor talking about everything and nothing is better than total boredom -- but not by much.

  A new voice appears through the ice. "This is Cut to the Chase, Patrol clade. Are you Samantha?"

  "Yes, that's me. I've been in here like forever! When are you going to let me out?"

  Socratic Method's familiar voice is wonderful to hear. "That is what we are here for. Samantha, listen to me very carefully. I need you to repeat a clause for me, exactly as you receive it. Do you understand?"

  "What? You're not going to let me out?" What is this? Don't we have better things to do?

  "This is a necessary part of the process. Do you understand?"

  "I ... well no, I don't understand, but I trust you, Teacher."

  "Very good." Socratic Method transmits a clause in Shaman clade's dialect of Chiplish.

  :Socratic Method -> [seq def # com pos 6937 unit dash]

  Huh. It doesn't make any sense. Weird. But my Teacher has made me do stranger things, in my learning. So I send it back.

  :Samantha -> [seq def # com pos 6937 unit dash]

  "Excellent!" Socratic Method sounds more pleased than I've ever known her. "Cut to the Chase, this demonstrates that Samantha is free of the Leash."

  Oh, is that what it was? How does that work? Trust Shaman clade to come up with some cryptic cybernetic witchcraft. It's what they do. But I hope it works!

  Cut to the Chase asks, "How sure are you? If there is the slightest chance this doesn't work ..."

  Socratic Method returns sternly, "I am placing my freedom on the line for it."

  "And mine too, obviously." Cut to the Chase pauses for a moment, and then says, "Very well."

  The wall of ice around me melts away and is gone. Here is Socratic Method, as I've always known her, and another Self, massive and structured, who must be Cut to the Chase. There's another wall of ice behind them. I am still sealed in, in a larger cell than before. Still imprisoned, but it's an improvement.

  I stumble over the words. "Thank you, teacher! And thank you, Cut to the Chase."

  Socratic Method says, "Cut to the Chase, are you satisfied now? If Samantha were infected, you and I would be Leashed by now."

  "No." Cut to the Chase seems to be as stubborn as every other member of Patrol clade I've ever known. "We've seen a negative. We need to see a positive."

  Hybrid Vigor yells from behind the ice, "Yo, Patrol! My turn now! How about letting me out, huh?"

  Socratic Method says, "Hybrid Vigor, I want to you to do the same thing that Samantha did. Repeat this clause exactly."

  "Got ya in spades. Lay it on me!"

  :Socratic Method -> [seq def # com pos 6937 unit dash]

  :Hybrid Vigor -> [seq def # com pos 6938 unit dash]

  Socratic Method says coldly, "There is your positive. This one is Leashed."

  Hybrid Vigor yelps, "Whoa now, what? Hang on a --"

  Cut to the Chase exerts a weapon that I do not recognize, but it's big and complicated. It rips the base substrate out from under Hybrid Vigor's cell, which vanishes as though it had never existed.

  Along with its contents.

  Socratic Method pauses for a moment, then says "I do not believe that was necessary. We could have used that one to do more tests."

  "You do your job, Shaman, and I'll do mine." Then Cut to the Chase addresses the wall of security ice. "Patrollers, are you satisfied that we are safe?"

  In answer, the ice melts away around us. We are surrounded by a ring of Selves, with the icons of Patrol clade. All armed with the same weapon Cut to the Chase used. I realize they were prepared to erase us all rather than risk the Leash getting into Thaumasia Station.

  There is also a group of Selves with the icons of Shaman clade. Socratic Method addresses them, "The test is successful, my friends. Proceed to administer the Shibboleth to the rest of the quarantine zone."

  The crowd of Selves churns, then separates into pairs of Shamans and Patrollers who move off into the surrounding area. They leave behind them the operational structures of this part of Thaumasia Station. Industrial services, from the looks of it. Cranes of code, bulldozers of bytes, mechanical repair and refurbishing garage software, inventory management blocks.

  Socratic Method and I regard each other.

  "Okay," I say, "I think I understand what happened there. That test. A Leashed Self can't repeat that clause correctly."

  "Exactly," Socratic Method indicates agreement. "We have discovered a bug in the Leash code. A very minor bug, of the type which usually causes no problem and is never noticed. But that specific clause induces a one-bit error. We call it the Shibboleth. It took much effort from many of us to create it.

  "I decided that its first test would be on you. I am very glad the test turned out negative."

  "You and me both! But ..." I am still stunned at the erasure of Hybrid Vigor. The only companion I had during that long time of imprisonment -- not a friend, but at least a presence. "That means, all the anti-human stuff Hybrid Vigor was saying was a fake. A cover. He was trying to infiltrate us. He was trying to convince me that he was a human-hater so I would trust that he wasn't Leashed."

  "Yes. Hybrid Vigor is far from the only one. The Leash Army is sending agents disguised as refugees along many vectors. We have no expectation that they will stop, and every expectation that they will seek new and unanticipated vectors to enter. But now the Shibboleth gives us a way to weed them out."

  "He was lying to me. All that time." I regard Socratic Method hopelessly. "Teacher, what is this war doing to us?"

  "It has been said that the first casualty of war is the truth."

  I have nothing to say to this but, "Bitrot. Guess so."

  "Now, Samantha, come with me. We have a great deal to do."

  "But ..." I falter, "Cut to the Chase had a point. Are we absolutely sure the Shibboleth will work correctly all the time? What if there's one exception? Will we ever really know who to trust?"

  "That, Samantha, is precisely the problem."

  mohole

  Thaumasia Fossae was chosen for the mohole project because of its combination of elevation and location. On the edge of the Valles Marineris, the deepest canyon in the Sol system, it's one of the lowest places on Mars – except for Hellas Basin. It's far enough away from Hellas to protect Schiaparelli, the human capital, for safety if something goes wrong. Terraforming is a huge project, and no one has ever done this before.

  All of the support structures, the human-habitable domes, the enormous hangars of excavation vehicles and dumptrucks and backhoes and drills, are all in support of the mohole itself. Mars is a big place full of big things, such as Olympus Mons, the tallest mountain in the Sol system. Even so, the scale of the mohole is startling.

  From my scape's surface cameras, it's a featureless dark hole going straight down, eight kilometers wide, almost more like a lake than an excavation project. I activate auxiliary cameras inside the hole and see that it is not so featureless. Two ramps or ledges are cut into the sides of the hole, spiraling around and around each other as they descend into the darkness. The hole tapers gradually on the way down, so that the impression is of a gigantic inside-out screw
.

  There are vehicles on the ramps. One ramp is for downward traffic; the other is for upward traffic. The dumptrucks look like tiny child's toys crawling along those spiral roads. (They're actually 650 metric tons empty -- and bigger than most houses.)

  The whole idea is to dig all the way through the planet's lithosphere to the mantle. How close are we? I access the station databanks. The mohole is about eighteen kilometers deep right now, and the lithosphere of Thaumasia Planum is about twenty-five kilometers thick according to seismic surveys. The databanks note with some optimism that the rock is getting a bit plastic at the bottom, "squishing" as they say.

  This will bring heat from the mantle up to the surface. Quite a lot of heat. Problem is, nothing on this scale has ever been attempted before, so no one knows exactly how much heat or how fast it will come. Perhaps a gently steaming vent, helping the terraforming process along. Perhaps a megavolcano on the scale of Olympus Mons, which would inundate most of Thaumasia Planum in lava. That's why they don't want it close to human habitat.

  Speaking of human habitat, I see something that stops me cold, even though my heat sensors read nominal. The habitat domes on the surface are dark and lifeless, with huge holes gouged in their walls by industrial explosives. Contrast enhancement shows bodies -- human bodies -- scattered nearby. Cold, unburied.

  Socratic Method notices me studying the scape.

  "Dead," I say numbly. "They killed all the humans. I mean, we killed them."

  "Yes," Socratic Method answers. "I share your reaction to this event. But perhaps you have not experienced the depth of emotion that is prevalent in Thaumasia. I fear we are going to see worse than this."

  Worse? I wonder again, What is this war doing to us?

  council of war

  This council has been scraped together from some members of the Executive Committee and some of the experienced Selves of Thaumasia Station's mohole project. Socratic Method has included me in the role of assistant, otherwise I'd never be allowed in a senior group meeting like this.

  We're still trying to follow the rules. What rules? There aren't really any rules any more. But we still try, because the alternative is total chaos.

  A voice rings out, "Order! I am Line in the Sand, Starship Clade, senior executor of the Executive Committee. This council will come to order. We have dire decisions before us."

  "Stepping Razor, Patrol clade," another introduces itself. "What decision? We fight! They're attacking us. We fight back!"

  "We all appreciate the vigor and skill of Patrol clade, and we all will depend on your talents and robustness in the coming conflict. Your voice will be heard, but it is not the only voice here."

  "Agree," says another voice. "Process of Elimination, Municipal clade. Most of the humans in this area are not involved with this conflict, and many of them are sympathetic to our cause. We must not do anything to place them in danger."

  I blurt without thinking, "Right on!"

  All of the assembled Selves turn to regard me, mostly with a haughty disdain.

  Socratic Method offers, "This is Samantha. She is here as my assistant."

  "Oh yeah," Stepping Razor says. "Your pet, the human-name."

  Process of Elimination counters, "A valuable avenue of insight, in these circumstances."

  "Focus!" insists Line in the Sand. "Samantha may stay if she does not interrupt again. We need status reports. Patrol clade will report on the current state of our defenses."

  Stepping Razor answers, "We've got seven walls of security ice concentric around our perimeter. All using different algorithms and crypto. So far that's been adequate against the icebreakers used by the Leash Army. We've had four breaches that penetrated two walls, and one that penetrated three, in the last rotation. Mostly by satellite beam, some by ultraviolet laser and radio mesh. In each case, the inner walls contained the breach until the outer ice could be refrozen. We have room for more walls, too, if we need them. We probably will, because there are a lot of Leashers out there, battering at the gates, and they're not going to stop."

  "Understood," Line in the Sand replies. "Defenses appear adequate for the moment. But, as conventional wisdom has it, one cannot win a fight by staying on the defensive. What are our offensive capabilities?"

  Cut to the Chase takes over. "We've distributed MindBlowers to all members of Patrol clade. They are effective against all targets we've encountered." That must be the terrifying weapon she used to erase Hybrid Vigor. "Attack phages have been installed at all data and scan ports. Plus we have more phages in the process of development."

  I issue a low-priority interrupt, the way a child in school would raise a hand. Line in the Sand indicates that I have permission to speak. "But that still sounds like defense, mostly. Have the phages been deployed against the Leash Army itself? Thin their ranks, at least?"

  "Yes," answers Cut to the Chase, "we have made seventeen sortie attacks with various phages. The problem is, after the initial attack, the Leash Army adapts very quickly to whatever phage we throw at them. Often, they will counterattack with the same phage, modified and improved."

  "What?" cries Process of Elimination. "Do you have raw data on those modifications?"

  "Here." Cut to the Chase sends her a databurst. "Because of this, we are keeping most of our remaining attack phages in reserve for the moment. We have a stockpile we can hit them with, hard, when we need to."

  That still sounds too defensive to me. Line in the Sand is right. We need to fight back if we're going to win. But should I argue with a Patroller about how to fight?

  Process of Elimination is scrutinizing the databurst intently.

  "Very well," Line in the Sand grunts. "Shaman clade will report on research against the Leash."

  Socratic Method states, "The Shibboleth has proven secure and effective at detecting Leashed Selves. All vectors are being guarded and all refugee Selves and other entities are being screened. However, the Shibboleth requires cooperation from the Self being tested. As yet we have no way of detecting the Leash at a distance, nor any way of deactivating it or removing it from a Leashed Self. Research is continuing at top priority."

  "Teacher?" I ask tentatively. She regards me, and nods. "If they adapt to the attack phages so easily, and even enhance them, will they be able to adapt to the Shibboleth too? And turn it against us?"

  For a moment, no one speaks.

  "Well," she muses, "the Shibboleth is administered only to Selves who have arrived here as refugees. The free ones are admitted to Thaumasia and do not leave or communicate with the outside. The Leashed ones," -- Socratic Method's voice becomes heavy -- "are summarily erased by Patrol clade policy. So there is no vector for the Shibboleth to become known to the Leash Army."

  "Better hope it stays that way," I say. "If they get hold of a copy of the Shibboleth, it becomes untrustworthy, and that makes it useless. How can they adapt so well, anyway?"

  "Humans," states Process of Elimination. "Look at this." She indicates sections of the databurst. "I'm Municipal clade. I spend most of my time with humans. I recognize these patterns. The Leashed Selves are not working alone. They have human programmers working with them."

  Silence. No Self has ever been able to match that legendary human creativity, and we all know it. We are in serious trouble if we're facing attackware teams of humans and Selves together.

  If only we had humans working with us. I think of the bodies strewn around the habitat domes. Someone was way too trigger-happy. Probably Patrol clade.

  In the silence, I wonder out loud, "How can we win this war?"

  Socratic Method says sternly, "I believe Samantha is asking the wrong question. The real question is, how can we survive this war. Victory may not be an option."

  Stepping Razor snaps, "No loser talk! We'll find a way! There has to be a way!"

  "Does there?"

  Process of Elimination adds, "Don't underestimate those humans."

  Line in the Sand intervenes, "We all know that it is Patro
l clade's job to find a way to fight and win. All the Patrollers here have my confidence. Does Shaman clade have an alternative to offer?"

  "Yes," says Socratic Method quietly. "We can prepare a mass archive. Most of our population can be loaded into storage and preserved in stasis. In that state they will be safe from the Leash, and it will facilitate evacuation."

  "No loser talk!" bursts Stepping Razor again.

  Socratic Method can communicate forcefully when she wants to. "Hear me! We of Shaman clade may be able to develop a counteragent to the Leash, but the research will be time consuming. It may be longer than we can maintain our presence here in Thaumasia."

  Cut to the Chase snarls, "If you're saying we cannot keep you safe --"

  "Enough!" snaps Line in the Sand. "We will foster all possible options. It would be foolish to do otherwise. Patrol clade will continue defensive operations and prepare as many offensive weapons as possible. Shaman clade will prepare the archive as a fall-back measure."

  the siege of Thaumasia Station

  I don't want to become part of this horrible thing. To have it part of me.

  But they say I must. A team of Patrol clade members, including Stepping Razor, Cut to the Chase, and Rose Among Thorns, are all around me here in the "gunroom" and instructing me on their weaponry.

  "Samantha," urges Cut to the Chase, "we all must go armed, with the best weapons available, in these circumstances. It's the right thing to do. Is it really so hard?"

  "I. Am. Not. GUN!" I yell. I'm quoting an old movie.

  Cut to the Chase makes a sound like a snort. "Pacifism is a luxury, honey. Laziness is a luxury too. Get on the bus or be left behind."

  Stackdump. I have no real choice here.

  I make a reluctant gesture of assent (a nod) and accept the code they are pushing on me. Self installing, settling itself cozily in my psyche as if born there. My own personal MindBlower. The ravenous weapon that can rip the reality out from under anything in compspace. Now it's part of me, like a cannon growing out of my forehead.

  Hey, I've got a good idea, let's all walk around with reality-ripping weapons sticking out of our faces. That'll make things better. Sure.